Tarot Cards
There are seventy-eight cards that make up a tarot deck. This is divided into two major groups: The Minor Arcana and the Major Arcana _ also called Trumps. There are twenty-two Trumps and they represent universal archetypes and higher forces of existence. The Minor Arcana consists of two parts. The Court Cards (also called Royalty Cards), and the Numbered Cards. Both are based on the number Four, the four elements of Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. This becomes the four suits of Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles, respectively. Therefore we have a royal family of four, times the four elements, makes up the sixteen Court Cards. The Numbered Cards consist of forty cards,(four times ten).
Tarot cards can be used for meditation, study or divination. As to divination, no one really knows how or why it works. The images in the cards are based on all the various experiences and stages of life that a human being can go through in a life-time. Therefore it can be a very intimate predictor or reflector of complex psychological states. The way the cards fall into a graceful pattern with a powerful meaning, however, is in the realm of the mysterious. What would we do without the mysterious?
Tarot, Past and Present
Tarot cards have a mysterious origin, and although many speculations have been made about how they originated, there is no way to be sure. The only thing that is certain is that they have their roots in antiquity. They first appeared in Europe around the Fifteenth Century. Their use was forbidden by the Inquisition and considered a sure of sign of witchcraft. Millions of witches, who were really herbalists and healers, in touch with the ancient ways of nature, were burned at the stake during the period from the eleventh to the sixteenth Centuries in Europe, aptly called the Dark Ages.
There is some evidence that Tarot was an ancient illustrated book of wisdom that was smuggled into Europe from the East in the form of playing cards to disguise its esoteric nature, because any kind of mysticism in this era was considered by the clergy as a direct threat to the power of the Church and to Patriarchy itself. Therefore, it was suppressed even in this disguised form.
Tarot cards re-emerged in the more liberal atmosphere of Eighteenth Century Renaissance Europe as a tool for divination. Artists were commissioned by royalty to paint these decks. It was believed by some as having its roots in ancient Egypt and attributed to the God Thoth who incarnated in flesh as Hermes Tresmagistus, the great Egyptian mystic and alchemist. Others believed tarot cards came from the pagans (country people) native to Europe, the Celts and the Druids. And some sources maintain that Tarot had its earliest origins in India or the Crescent Valley where the Sumerian and Chaldean civilizations flourished.
The amazing prophet Edgar Cayce believed that the wisdom of Egypt and the ancient world originated in the lost continent of Atlantis, and was salvaged after Atlantis destroyed itself when some of its people misused their great powers. He describes his visions clearly in the book 'Edgar Cayce on Atlantis'. However, there is no solid evidence in the scientific sense to prove these visions of a great prophet and messenger of peace, nor any written records of the existence of Atlantis, therefore it is in the realm of myth and legend.
Eliphas Levi, the famous occultist in the Nineteenth Century, developed a correlation between tarot and the ancient Hebrew system of mysticism, the Kabbalah. Again, there is no evidence that these two systems had a common source.
Many esoteric or "secret societies" in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries such as the Theosophical Society, the Rosicrucians, the Church of Light, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the Builders of the Adytum (B.O.T.A.) studied the Tarot and established it as a valid metaphysical tool. Edward Waite popularized the Tarot in a deck painted by Pamela Coleman Smith. This tarot deck and the accompanying book took their inspiration from medieval European imagery and lore, and the Legend of the Holy Grail. This deck, also known as the Rider Tarot Deck, is still the most widely used tarot deck today. Aleister Crowley, Wait's contemporary, brought the Egyptian influence back into Tarot with the beautiful deck painted by Frieda Harris ('Thoth Tarot Cards'). As beautiful and intense as this tarot deck is, the book is laden with Crowley's indulgent and egotistic viewpoint.
It is my feeling that in the wake of the new millennium, and in the Aquarian Age, we do not need secret societies anymore. The knowledge will be available to more and more people who are ready to accept it. I would like to think that we are going to evolve to a higher state of consciousness as a species.
Tarot has been correlated with many other ancient mystical systems, i.e. Astrology ('The Book of Thoth' by Aleister Crowley), Numerology ('The Tarot Handbook: Practical Application of Ancient Visual Symbols', by Angeles Arrien), Alchemy ('The Alchemical Tarot' by Rosemary Ellen Guiley, illustrated by Robert M. Place), and Hermetics ('The Hermetic Tarot' by Godfrey Dawson & Stuart Kaplan). And recently with the coming of the Aquarian Age and so many wonderful tarot decks springing up like fresh flowers in a field almost everyday, it is also being correlated with Greek Mythology ('The Mythic Tarot' by Juliet Sharman-Burke & Liz Greene), with the Native American tradition ('Native American Tarot Deck' by Magda Weck Gonzales, of Shawnee heritage, illustrated by her husband, J.A. Gonzales), the Mayan tradition ("Flight of the Winged Serpent") and there is even a Shamanic correlation in the Medicine Cards, to mention a few.
What this shows us is that all mystical systems ultimately come from one source, the source of all wisdom which is the Great Spirit, the Source of all Life. And that life and wisdom is within each and everyone one of us. What we have to do is stop and listen (as Christ said: "seek and ye shall find"). And that is what we attempt to do when we meditate, or go on Shamanic journeys, it is to get in touch with the part of us that knows everything and can be everywhere at once, and can communicate with beings in other realms--that spark of divinity in all of us. And more importantly, we can realize that the Universe is Love.
Tarot became popular in the United States in the Sixties when a period of exploration in spirituality accompanied social and political upheaval and the re-evaluation of existing values. Timothy Leary wrote about Tarot in 'The Game of Life'. Tarot readings were quite fashionable. In the seventies, many feminist versions of Tarot were interpreted, among them was the 'Mother Peace Tarot' by Vicki Noble, the first round tarot cards. In the eighties, there was a surge of interest in the psychic and "paranormal phenomena". I put them in quotes because I feel that these are not such unusual phenomena but daily realities that we have learned to shut down by our insistence on logical thought and scientific evidence with no room for intuition and the imagination. How many times have you thought of someone and they called or you ran into them? This is synchronicity. We are more telepathic than we think! The reason tarot is often so uncannily accurate as a tool for divination is that it carries a message from the inner self. Since the universe is Love, our Guardian Spirits want to help us. But we do have to ask.
Tarot is a visual tool that speaks to our inner mind, it speaks in images which is the language of the collective unconscious. Images translate the inner truth which is beyond words ( and images) into a form that we can understand. Images are a bridge between the collective unconscious or superconscious and our individual consciousness.
But even so, tarot is a tool, and like any other tool, it can be misused. That is why it is so important to treat it with proper respect. It is important to spend a few minutes in meditation and preparation before you begin handling this oracle. It would help to call on your highest guides to assist in the divination process. It is important for the ego to temporarily step aside and let the wisdom of the Self come through unhindered.
Anahid, Copyright 1999
last updated January, 2008
